


Clocks

by canadiancop



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 15:50:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10539636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadiancop/pseuds/canadiancop
Summary: you run. you run, because there is nothing else left to do. you have been running forever, and even when the clock stops, you don’t. you run for your life and your love and your family, even though as of right now, you have none of those things. as of right now, you are In Between. as of right now, you are Alone.orthe one where Beth and Alison are reincarnated and every lifetime is 24 hours. They meet at noon.





	

you run. you run, because there is nothing else left to do. you have been running forever, and even when the clock stops, you don’t. you run for your life and your love and your family, even though as of right now, you have none of those things. as of right now, you are In Between. as of right now, you are Alone.

your name is elizabeth childs and you are old. you are older than you can count, and lonelier than you can remember, and you run. you don’t know when you started, only that you have been running for your life, and She has Not.

She has not been running. She does not run. She is not a runner, because She is not you. She is a mystery, and She is waiting to be solved.

(you are not good at puzzles. maybe you were, at one time, but you are far too old and far too tired to think back to then. then was a long time ago, anyway.)

Her name is Alison Hendrix, and She is not a runner. she is a stayer, and she stays, long after you have gone. she stays, and she waits for you, until her last breath, every time, because how is she to know that you aren’t there anymore?

sometimes, you feel bad that you run. she does not deserve a runner; she deserves a survivor, a stayer. she deserves someone who is Not You.

(Not You’s are easy to come by, you think.)

there is a room; you pass it every lifetime of Hers, every 24 hours, even though you can’t be sure it’s been 24. you think it’s strange, because before Alison Hendrix, this room was not there. before Alison Hendrix, you were free to run. before Alison Hendrix – you can’t remember.

you don’t like this room. you run and you run and sometimes it feels like you’re running for you and sometimes it feels like you’re running from this room. in this room, there are clocks. there is only one still ticking, every time you run by. one is ticking and hundreds upon thousands are on the floor, broken. some of them are broken with their hands stuck on midnight, and some – well, some of them are Not.

(she is midnight. she is Cinderella with long blonde hair and bright eyes and a blue dress that isn’t hers. the dress and the hair and the eyes are all borrowed. all borrowed and to be given back at midnight, only no one can tell you when midnight will strike.)

you are not midnight. you are not Cinderella. you are not one of Her mice and you are not Her pumpkin and you are not Her prince. you are not anything. you are a speck of dust at the palace ball. you are a chandelier that people once admired but doesn’t work anymore. you are a picture of the time you hated most. you are Nothing, and somehow, she does not see that.

sometimes, when you stop running to catch your breath, you see little moments of her life. times when you are not there, and times when she wishes you were.

(you don’t understand that. she has never met you. she does not know how broken you are. she deserves someone who is Not You.)

(hundreds of Not You’s pass her, but she never even glances at them.)

you run. every midnight that passes by, you are reborn. you are down where she is, only far away and you can’t get by. sometimes you are drowning and sometimes you are burning and sometimes, you are dying from disease. disease inside that no one can cure or see or notice. (she is never drowning. she is never burning. she is sometimes sick, but she is always cured.)

sometimes you almost make it to noon on the clock, or you get to two pm. sometimes you make it to 10am. sometimes you don’t make it past 3am and sometimes, your clock never starts.

your hands are supposed to touch at noon. your hands are supposed to line up - seconds minutes hours - your hands are supposed to feel each other and hold each other and breathe - one two three too slow to hold on - your hands are supposed to Be. (your hands have never Been)

she is noon. she is fast and she is slow and sometimes she is wrong but she is not broken, ever. (you are not fixed, ever.)

she does not run. she stays and she sits and when she is done, when she is midnight, she does it again.

you do not stay. you run and you cry and when she is done, when she is midnight, you do it again.

you are stuck, eternally. until the room runs out of clocks or you run out of lives to waste or she runs out of patience.

(none of the clocks can tell you when that might be)


End file.
